Nice itinerary, but subpar food
Volendam Cruise Review to Canada, New England, New York
Contributor Level:
Second Mate
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 5
Helpful Votes: 67
Review summary
We enjoyed this cruise. The ports of call made up for the disappointing food on the ship. May be we would try a larger HAL ship in the future.Embarkation
Easy, smooth and fast embarkation. Got on the ship at noon. Cabin was already ready.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Definitely showing deep cost cutting on food. Breakfast was good, lots of choice. Lunch had a lot of choice as well, but food preparation was not to the expectation. Dining room food was subpar comparing to what we had experience in our past cruises. This was the first on HAL. We were totally disappointed. We had some good meals at the beginning, such as grilled salmon, and rack of lamb. Then it went downhill after. I had tuna steak, it was so well done, I could not eat it. I have never seen tuna steak cooked to that doneness.
This was a Canada/New England cruise. We did not even have a lobster dinner night, but you could have a lobster every night, if you pay $25 extra each time.
Here are some example of the food. My wife had ice cream sundae for dessert. It came all melted. She asked for a replacement, It came not any better. We had clam chowder one evening, my wife's bowl had no clams, mine had one. Another evening, we had chicken noodle soup. We had to look hard to find the little bits of vermicelli pasta hidden among the tiny bit of shredded chicken meat at the bottom of the bowl. It was basically broth. There was a salad that the menu said to have avocado in it. We found 2 small bits of avocado the size of a peanut each. We joked that a whole avocado could probably feed the whole dining room!! The list goes on. Too embarrassed to list.
In the cafeteria, it had 2 ice machines, but they put an ice bin in front of each. People just used the ice scoop to scoop out ice into their cup. Hands would be touching the ice cubes in the bin while scooping ice out. We found that extremely unsanitary.
Onboard Activities
The pool area was very nice, the pool roof were closed when it was cooler and windy outside. It was opened a bit when the couple of days we had warmer temperature. There were plenty of loungers available. Fitness center was not busy.
Entertainment
The ship is the smallest HAL ship. The World Stage is not big enough for Broadway style production shows. We had dancing, singing and comedian shows. Our cruise director, Nick, was one of the best we had seen so far. He presented documentary type shows. Beside being a fantastic cruise director, he was also a great presenter and story teller.
We enjoyed the String Trio, Ocean Bar Band, and the cocktail pianist.
Children's Programs
We did not have any children with us. In fact, did not see any children on the ship.
Service and Staff
Service and staff were excellent. Everyone was very polite, and helpful. I could see that they were short staffed. When the dining room was busy, the wait staff appeared to be all stressed out. Service in the dining room suffered a bit. That was not their fault when they were shorthanded.
Ship Quality
Volendam is one of the oldest and smallest ships in the HAL fleet. The smaller size makes it possible go into ports where larger ships could not, such as Montreal. The ship was kept very clean. I could see them doing maintenance work around the ship. There were a lot of places we could find to sit and relax quietly.
Cabin / Stateroom
The cabin is small compared to cabins on other ships we had been on. No refrigerators. There was only one US and one European power outlet in the cabin. The safe operation was a bit odd. It was not a number combination lock. You have to use one of your credit cards to open and close the safe. That means you could not lock up that one credit card.
We found that our 2 large standard size suitcases were not able to go under the bed. The bed was a tag too low. Our very helpful cabin steward tried, but did not work. Those were the same 2 suitcases we used for all our previous over a dozen cruises. They ended up taking up very limited space in the cabin. Bed was comfortable. This ship was last renovated a in 2019. The bathtub was replaced with a walk-in shower. That was much nicer.
Ship tip
Do not set your expectation high for the food.
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
We spent 2 nights in Montreal before getting on the ship. We had been there before. We got around mainly with Uber.
We enjoyed Quebec City. We docked right by the Old Quebec City. We bought a GPS self guided walking tour app on my phone, that we followed at our own pace. Nice city. Will want to go back again
The ship offered shuttle from the dock to town. We took the shuttle, then walked around town. Then walked back to the ship along the shore. It was a wonderful pleasant walk.
The ship docked right next to the town. We just walked around town to a local church, along the waterfront to the jetty. It was a beautiful walk.
Again, the ship offered shuttle buses to go into town. We just walked to town. Walked around the area, then into the city hall. It was open for all the visitors. We went up to the Green Roof of the city hall to have a better view of the city. We then went behind the city hall into the Stream Trail. It is a very nice walking trail into the wooded area. It is not obvious how to get in there. Just use Google Maps on the phone to locate the entrance, which was not marked.
Not much to see here. We did not go too far from the ship. It was a tender port. We did not go on any excursions.
The ship docked right next to the city. We walked around the city. Then we took an Uber to Signal Hill, it was worth the trip. A must see location. The Uber driver took us to the top of the hill where the tower is. Then we walked down to the visitor's center.
We had been here many time. Everyone had to get off the ship to go through immigration passport checks.
Disembarkation
It was easy and quick.